I'm in Lyon now. Flying back to Canada soon. Got to say, I loved the food in France (cheese and wine especially, it is making me into am alcoholic). I did a driving tour, and the people here are super nice (not like the false info people like to spread).

post 25 a fool ! without arrogant all/almost reliable members even " naysayers " say i post good for milit things and i think I was already interested in this when it was not yet born hehe
But yes yestarday again aznd sometimes even for few wotrds the sentence don't make sense, difficult !
I try post short better but sometimes diificult i talk too much hehe

Registered Member

I'm in Lyon now. Flying back to Canada soon. Got to say, I loved the food in France (cheese and wine especially, it is making me into am alcoholic). I did a driving tour, and the people here are super nice (not like the false info people like to spread).

You have an accent, that is sure, plus your intonation by slightly it is is is based upon Chinese phonetics, for you is not perceptible (I do not feel I have accent too but i do).

So you can be sure of my accent even without meeting me or speaking with me? The only info that you have on me is my age when I came to the US. And that is enough for you to make such conclusive statement?

Age is important but is not everything. I know a guy who came to the US when he was 6 but still carries heavy accent now (he is 45). He can speak English very fluently but still can't lose his accent.

I also know people who can speak perfect American English without even spending a single day in the US. I actually know 3 people who can do that, one girl from Mainland China, one guy from Taiwan and another guy from Switzerland.

To judge someone's language skill, you at least need to speak with him, yes? That's called being fair. And you are not in position to judge me.

I can believe you have a very good English, after many years of been in the USA, my Swiss friend has a really good English too, but you have a foreign accent that is for sure, in fact i can assure you, you speak English using words that get you closer to Chinese Grammar, for me, for example i tend to use cognates that are both in English and Spanish in few words words that are easy for me to understand.

I can't stop but laugh... You can assure me how I speak English without even meeting me and/or speaking with me?

It would be a complete failure on my part that I still need to "get closer to Chinese grammar" when I speak English...

You do realize that you are learning a foreign language in your home country, while I had to learn English in the US? To you, it's a hobby. To me, it's necessity. I hope you appreciate the difference.

Further more there are ethnic accent, you can tell a person is Hispanic, even if it is native from one who is African american, in fact the different accent a language has is related to the people that adopted the language.

Cuban Spanish for example has phonetics of Southern Spain mixed with African phonetics, Mexican Spanish was highly influenced by the Native american languages and Argentine and Uruguayan Spanish is highly influenced by Italian.

I sincerely hope that you give others more credit when you try to judge them. I've spent most part of my life around foreigners, both when I was in China and when I came to the States. You don't think I understand the difference between foreign accent and ethnic accent? You don't think that I can tell the difference between an African American and an Italian American or an Irish American?

What you can not understand is the tongue and its related muscles do adapt to the phonetics of their native language

I find this sentence hilarious. How do you know that I "cannot understand"? Did I mention anywhere that human doesn't need tongue to speak? So in your mind, I am so stupid that, even after speaking a second language for over 26 years, I have no clue what the tongue is for? Didn't I say in my last post that I spent a lot of time correcting my tongue movement?

I will stop here. I don't need someone on a military forum, whom I've never met, to tell me how good my English is. You are welcome to insist on my "heavy Chinese accent". And while you are at it, you are also welcome to believe that I am dumb as rock. This is my last post on this matter.

Registered Member

I wouldn't give an age limit, like 5, or 10 or even 20. How well one learns a language depends on many factors. I came to the US when I was 16 and I speak English like a native with no accent. I perfected my English in high school. To this day, only once, an older gentleman, with whom I had a long conversation about politics, thought I might've spent some time away from Texas because he could tell that "my Texan was not as strong as it should be..."
...

Nice history my friend
And 1/, 2/, 3/ ...waouw i need you for do reports hehe

You have an accent, that is sure, plus your intonation by slightly it is is is based upon Chinese phonetics, for you is not perceptible (I do not feel I have accent too but i do).

I have a friend from Switzerland, he has almost not accent, in fact i thought he spoke like native, however he does have an accent, native people will distinguish it, you do not feel you have an accent, plus is rude specially in the US to say you have accent if you are Asian or a minority.
He told me his wife and daughters can pick it up (when they say you have an accent from being away from Texas is a nice way to tell you, you do have an accent

What you can not understand is the tongue and its related muscles do adapt to the phonetics of their native language, since Spanish is my native language, my tongue muscles are adapted to the vowels and consonants of Spanish, my ear also is trained to Spanish sounds, people develop an accent because we can not distinguish a sound from another and the tongue finds it hard to think how to produce it.

I can believe you have a very good English, after many years of been in the USA, my Swiss friend has a really good English too, but you have a foreign accent that is for sure, in fact i can assure you, you speak English using words that get you closer to Chinese Grammar, for me, for example i tend to use cognates that are both in English and Spanish in few words words that are easy for me to understand.

Further more there are ethnic accent, you can tell a person is Hispanic, even if it is native from one who is African american, in fact the different accent a language has is related to the people that adopted the language.

Cuban Spanish for example has phonetics of Southern Spain mixed with African phonetics, Mexican Spanish was highly influenced by the Native american languages and Argentine and Uruguayan Spanish is highly influenced by Italian.

American Spanish is farther apart from its British origin compared to Australian English (remember Australia has more links to England and its independence was several centuries after the US got its independence), people from the north east cost in the USA has been influenced more by British English, than Texan or Californian English that have higher influence of Spanish, and you can see it in the way R is pronounce.

In NZ, apart from Southland which is where I live, there are no regional accents in speaking English. However one can pick out a Southlander by the way we speak is because of the way we pronounce our R's.
I have noticed a large percentage of native English speakers develop an American accent event after a relatively short period eg 1yr. I put that down to people in the younger age group think it's cool to have an American accent, although folks with a strong Scottish accent, rarely pick up an American accent.

My written English is not very good in a gramatical sense because I never went to school until I was fifteen, and that was only after I had expressed an interest in enlisting in the RAAF.

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